Creative Film Associates — founded by Curtis Harrington and Kenneth Anger in 1948 — represents one of the earliest attempts in the United States by artists to create a distribution organization of some kind to represent experimental films. It lasted approximately two years, renting to schools and film societies, apparently folding when Kenneth Anger moved to Europe in 1950.
While working at the Academy Film Archive, I picked up some film from Curtis Harrington in 2005, including a reel containing original 1948 Kodachrome prints of Five Film Exercises Films 4 & 5 by John and James Whitney. On the lightstruck leader at the head of the reel was written (in Kenneth Anger’s unmistakeable handwriting): HEADS – REEL 1 – PROGRAM 1 – “FILM EXERCISES 4 & 5” AND “FRAGMENT OF SEEKING” & “META”. Tantalizingly, reel 2 would have comprised Anger’s supposedly lost film Escape Episode. These two Whitney prints seem to have been the original prints given to Creative Film Associates for distribution in 1948, and still retained their original head leader from their original context as the start of CFA’s first compilation program of experimental films.
In a Fall 2003 appearance together (with Lawrence Jordan as well) at the Getty Museum (which I was fortunate to attend!), Kenneth claimed they also handled Jordan Belson films. Curtis mentioned that they advertised in the Partisan Review. Kenneth also explained (with much laughter from Curtis) that they invented a fictitious secretary named Violet Parks to handle some of the business and much of their correspondence for the organization.
They indeed later may have represented some of Jordan Belson’s earliest work, and apparently something by Frank Stauffacher, among other possible filmmakers.
I’m still researching further information about it, but in the meantime, will include below the assorted information and documents I’ve thus far encountered about this fascinating project:
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Thanks to the Margaret Herrick Library, I was able to access the text of a document which appears to be a promotional announcement/mailing for the organization from 1948. It exists in a scrapbook among Curtis Harrington’s papers at the Herrick. The text, which appears on letterhead with the name — Creative Film Associates — in the upper left and a “slogan” of sorts — “current exploration in cinema” — at the bottom, reads as follows:
Existing independently, there are today artists working in the medium of cinema. But their product, the advanced film, is in an anomolous [sic] position; although there are publishers devoted to the efforts of creative writers, and art galleries that display the work of modern painters, the individual film maker has always lacked an adequate outlet for his creative work: his large potential audience has never been reached.
The establishment of CREATIVE FILM ASSOCIATES represents the effort of these independent film makers to provide themselves with a cooperative means of distribution. A concerted effort can now be made to bring these films before the public which already supports the work of modern writers, composers and painters.
These film artists have different and at times widely varying approaches in their use of the motion picture as a creative medium; however all are distinguished by their sincerity and devotion to the unique possibilities of cinema as an independent art form. One of the primary functions of CREATIVE FILM ASSOCIATES will be to preserve the autonomy of these artists, their opportunity to work in the film medium in their own manner unhampered by the commercial restrictions which have for so long prevented the artistic and moral growth of the motion picture.
CREATIVE FILM ASSOCIATES inaugurates the first of a series of releases, available on 16mm for rental, with PROGRAM ONE, introducing the work of five contemporary American film artists.
PROGRAM ONE:
FILM EXERCISES 4 & 5 by John and James Whitney
Running time: 10 minutes. Color. Sound.
FRAGMENT OF SEEKING by Curtis Harrington
Running time: 15 minutes. B&W. Sound.
META by Robert Howard
Running time: 3 minutes. Color. Silent.
ESCAPE EPISODE by Kenneth Anger
Running time: 25 minutes. B&W. Sound.
Although these films are grouped together on one reel for the sake of convenience, intermissions are considered necessary between each film to allow for the proper absorption of the separate and distinct idiom in which each work is conceived.
Rental fee per day of PROGRAM ONE: $25.00
Rental fees for individual films, and sale prices, will be quoted upon request.
An adjustment in the rental fee will be made for those who wish to show the program in the private home, with no admission charged.
During extended rentals the rental fee is half-price per day for each day after the first, except in the case of public showings where admission is charged.
Program notes and publicity material will be supplied upon request.
Note that a 16mm SOUND projector is necessary for the projection of these films.
ORDERING INSTRUCTIONS:
Please order well in advance. Whenever possible, CREATIVE FILM ASSOCIATES prefers the rental fee to be paid in advance. The shipping charges will be C.O.D. and the films should be returned pre-paid, promptly after the showing date.
ORDER FROM:
CREATIVE FILM ASSOCIATES
6215 Franklin Avenue
Hollywood 28, California
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An additional interesting starting point for this interesting organization is a text written by Curtis Harrington himself (then only 22 years old) about the new endeavor, published in Hollywood Quarterly, Summer 1948, vol 3, no. 4:
DISTRIBUTION CENTER FOR EXPERIMENTAL FILMS
The postwar revival of the experimental film movement in the United States, which Lewis Jacobs wrote about in detail in the Spring, 1948, issue of the Hollywood Quarterly, has resulted in the formation of a coöperative distribution center to extend the distribution of these films through film societies, universities, art museums and galleries, and all interested groups and private individuals. The organization has been named Creative Film Associates, and represents the attempt of the film makers to get together on a coöperative basis to insure the widest possible circulation of their work.
Already available for rental from Creative Film Associates is its Program I, which includes Film Exercises 4 and 5 by John and James Whitney, Fragment of Seeking by Curtis Harrington, Meta by Robert Howard, and Escape Episode by Kenneth Anger. Also available are a program of films by Maya Deren – Meshes of the Afternoon, At Land, A Study in Choreography for Camera, and Ritual in Transfigured Time, – and Kenneth Anger’s much-discussed Fireworks. Further releases are to be made in the near future. For the convenience of those who wish to rent an evening’s program of experimental works without facing the almost impossible task of assembling a group of films from a wide variety of sources-usually, heretofore, from the individual film makers themselves,-several of the films have been put together by Creative Film Associates to form a balanced, 45-minute program, which is available at a rental rate lower than the total of fees for each film rented separately.
Creative Film Associates has also established the Creative Film Foundation, which will attempt to preserve and make available as many of the earlier experimental films as may be recovered (for many of the negatives and prints of the experimental films made in the ‘twenties and early ‘thirties have since disappeared), or obtained through the kindness of the film makers who still own their negatives. In the latter category, the films of Man Ray–L’Étoile de Mer, Emak Bakia, Les Mystères du Château de Dé,–and Robert Florey and Slavko Vorkapitch’s Life and Death of a Hollywood Extra are soon to be released by the foundation. A further activity of the associates has been the establishment of the Creative Film Press, which will publish a series of monographs on various aspects of the creative film.
As Lewis Jacobs concluded in his article, “the future for experimental films is more promising than ever before,” and the organization of Creative Film Associates represents one of the first concrete steps taken by the film makers as a group to implement the promise by making experimental films readily available from a central source.
As a nonprofit organization, developed and operated on a coöperative basis by the film makers themselves, Creative Film Associates will return all revenue from the rentals to the artists, in order to insure the production of new films. It is hoped that by this method enough films may continually be produced to create a steady supply of new works, so that film centers and other interested groups may expect to have regular experimental film showings throughout the year. This will, of course, contribute to the continued development of the cinema as an independent art form.
More detailed information about the films available from Creative Film Associates, and the activities of the organization, may be obtained by writing to Creative Film Associates, 6215 Franklin Avenue, Hollywood 28, California.
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Correspondence from 1948-1949 exists in James Broughton’s papers from Curtis Harrington and Kenneth Anger expressing repeated interest in distributing something of Broughton’s, as well as a possible collaboration with Broughton’s Farallone Films.
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In a letter to Frank Stauffacher on 12/1/1949, Curtis Harrington writes: “Since I haven’t heard from you for quite some time I thought I’d write and see if there are any new developments of note in experimental film in San Francisco. Kenneth and I would very much like to get our Program Two organized as soon as possible. Have you completed work on SAUSALITO by now? And has the score to FORM EVOLUTION been put on film yet? Creative Film Associates is going along splendidly, and if we can just get more film makers to cooperate with us (it is really entirely to their advantage) we can go ahead by leaps and bounds.”
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LIGHTSTRUCK 